The ‘Forgotten’ middle class: An analysis of the effects of globalisation

Regina Pleninger, Jakob de Haan and Jan-Egbert Sturm

The World Economy, 2022, vol. 45, issue 1, 76-110

Abstract: This paper studies the effects of globalisation on the income share of the middle class. Our findings suggest that globalisation, proxied by the KOF Economic Globalization Index, reduces the income share of the middle class. The income share of the poorest 20% also drops due to globalisation, while that of the richest 20% increases. We find that only de facto and not de jure measures of globalisation have statistically significant effects on income shares and inequality. Our results are robust for alternative definitions of the middle‐class income share and hold for trade and financial globalisation. When we distinguish between groups of countries, we find that our main result is driven by low‐ and middle‐income countries; for high‐income countries, we do not find evidence that globalisation has an effect on the income share of the middle class.

Date: 2022
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